The Handmaid’s Tale trends after Alabama votes to ban abortion

Opponents were quick to draw comparisons to Margaret Atwood’s feminist opus after the US state voted to ban abortion in almost all circumstances.

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The Handmaid's Tale was recently made in to a TV series, starring Elisabeth Moss (Channel 4)

After Alabama voted for a near-total ban on abortion, the title of Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale began trending on social media, with many opponents drawing comparisons to the dystopian classic.

The US state’s Republican-dominated Senate voted 25-6 for the bill, which, if approved by its governor, would become the country’s most stringent law on terminations of pregnancy.

The bill would block abortions in the event of rape and incest, and features an exception only for when the woman’s health is at serious risk

Google searches in the United States for 'Handmaid's Tale' after Alabama banned abortion in almost all circumstances pic.twitter.com/0i8Nd0lapu

Along with it, she wrote: “I keep thinking about the flashback scene in Handmaid’s Tale when the women characters lose their jobs and bank accounts and instinctively know what it means and what’s coming, and most people – especially the men – are kind of oblivious and don’t take it seriously.”

I keep thinking about the flashback scene in Handmaid's Tale when the women characters lose their jobs and bank accounts and instinctively know what it means and what's coming, and most people—especially the men—are kind of oblivious and don't take it seriously. Anyway, pic.twitter.com/E8sABiMMKk

Representative Terri Collins, the bill’s sponsor, said it recognised the “baby in the womb is a person”.

The Republican senators say they are intentionally seeking a conflict with the 1973 landmark US Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade, which legalised abortion nationally, as they hope it will lead to an effort to overturn it across all states.

For anyone horrified by Alabama’s proposed abortion ban, or calling it Gilead. Look closer to home! Northern Ireland does not permit abortions even in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality. The ONLY exception is endangerment to a woman’s life.